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y .

in the Collection of
the Cooper-Hewitt
Museum

The Smithsonian
histitution's National
Museum of Design

Glass

in the Collection of
the Cooper-Hewitt
Museum ,
The Smithsonian
Institution's National
Museum of Design

././././/. /.//.I.l.^

Cc'i'cr

Rene Lalique, 1860-1945

France

Vase, "Gros Scarabees" about 1930
Acid-etched molded glass

From the collection of the late Stanley Siegel;
the gift of Stanley Siegel, 1975-32-7

Title pofic

Denis Diderot, Eucyclopeiiif

Paris. 1762-72.

vol. 10, plate 20

Black and white photographs by Tom Rose
Cover photograph by Scott Hyde
Design by Heidi Humphrey

Library of Congress Catalog No. 79-54228

Glassmakers at work. From Goorgius Agricola, Do Re MitoU'ua, Book 12, originally
published 1556.

Foreword

The history of glass is one of a very
special marriage of material and
technique. The unique qualities of
glass-its functional ability to hold
liquids, its transparency or opacity,
and its potential for reflecting and
transmitting color and light-have
fascinated and delighted both its
makers and owners since early times

As with all of the collections at the
Cooper-Hewitt, we are committed
not only to building and caring for
them, but to making them accessible
to the public. It gives me pleasure to
introduce our glass collection with
this publication which was made
possible through the generosity of
Steuben Glass, New York.

The collection of glass at the
Cooper-Hewitt Museum provides a
visual delight to the Museum's visi-
tors and is an invaluable resource for
students and designers. It ranges in
date from ist-century Syrian-
Roman examples to the present
century. Within the collection are
superb examples of 18th-century
engraved glass which came to the
Museum as part of the James Hazen
Hyde collection of "Four Conti-
nents" material, wonderful Art
Deco pieces designed by Rene
Lalique, works produced in the
studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany
and other 20th century designers and
companies, such as Steuben.

Lisa Taylor
Director

The Cooper-Hewitt Collection: Glass

The history of the decorative arts is a
visual record of a human ability to
transform the natural materials of the
world to meet'varied requirements
of usefulness, and to satisfy an innate
desire to shape and ornament the
necessary accoutrements of daily life .
The creative gesture inherent in man's
need to shape, and the inspiration
and craftsmanship which they
embody, become documents of
man's place in time and culture. Of
all the materials drawn from the
earth's natural resources with which
people have created functional and
beautiful forms, few products have
so elegantly combined technical
knowledge and the human creative
impulse as glass. Among the most
fragile and precious of substances, at
once both solid and ephemeral, glass
retains a pride of position in history.
The raw ingredients for making
glass are basic and common; the
transformation of these ingredients
into jewel-like receptacles for light is
one of the miracles of human effort.

A technical definition of glass de-
scribes the material as a liquid which
cools and hardens without crystalli-
zation, becoming so stiff that it has
the property of being a solid. Silica,
usually in the form of ordinary sand.

provides the bulk of the raw mate-
rials that are melted together at
extremely high temperatures, along
with additives such as lime or soda to
render the molten mass workable.

The process by which glass was
created is of venerable antiquity;
although research has indicated that
glass was produced in Western Asia
as early as 3,000 B.C., some of the
earliest e.xtant vessels have been
found in the context of pharaonic
Egypt. Since that time, craftsmen
have elaborated upon basic tech-
niques of production, although the
processes have, in reality, changed
comparatively little. The most basic
process involves combining raw
materials to form a "batch"; these
materials are heated to over 2000°
Fahrenheit to produce a viscous, red-
hot liquid. Ultimately, the molten
material is worked to create a formed
and shaped solid. This process is a
record of the triumph of ingenuity
over material. To appreciate and
understand the history of glass in its
myriad forms, functions and con-
texts, it is important to recognize
certain of the basic techniques
involved.

The collections of glass at the
Cooper-Hewitt Museum are ency-

clopedic in scope, with notable
strengths, and present many of the
processes ot fabrication and the
techniques of forming and orna-
menting glass within an historical
context. It is with techniques as a
focal point that the collection of the
Cooper-Hewitt is surveyed here.

The origins of glassmaking are not
entirely clear, although certain
authors have suggested that the
technique may have grown out of
the knowledge and use of pottery
glazes that, when fired, produce a
shiny, transparent (or translucent),
impervious surface on earthenware
products. By the time of King
Thotmes III of Egypt (i 504-1450
B.C.), basic techniques for the
production of hollow glass vessels
were known. Early examples of
Egyptian glass tend to be of solid-
core fabrication. A core of mud,
possibly mixed with straw, was
shaped on the end of a rod; this form
was dipped in molten glass and
rolled on a flat surface to produce a
smooth, rounded body. Dipping
and wrapping the form in several
layers of glass built up a body wall
thick enough to withstand use, and
with the removal of the internal core
by crushing the mud, the glass body
wall was self-supporting. These

small core vessels were among the
earliest successes in the handling of
the material, and in their simplicity
belie the technical understanding
involved, including the technology
of furnace construction and varying
composition of the raw materials.
The colored, transparent, translu-
cent and opaque effects which could
be achieved with the material were
quickly exploited, and early makers
used glass to imitate precious and
semi-precious stones, as Egyptian
jewelry indicates. In addition to its
tunctional qualities, it was recog-
nized that glass could create forms
that , in essence, captured air and light
in a transparent shell, a quality which
remains to the present day a basic and
primary characteristic of the material
(Fig. I).

Subsequent to the production of
solid-core vessels, mold-casting, and
carving of raw blocks of glass, a
major advance in the manipulation
of the material occurred. It was dis-
covered, either accidentally or inten-
tionally, that the red-hot liquid was
viscous enough to be balanced on the
end of a hollow pipe while air was
introduced into the center of the
molten gather (a quantity of molten
glass) through the bore of the pipe.
This technique permitted craftsmen
to easily and quickly create thin-
walled bubbles of glass of varying
shape and size, thus paving the way
for the brilliant history of blown
glass. After the initial blowing of the
body, the bubble could be removed
from the hollow rod, exposing an
open end . The opposite end was then
reattached to a solid rod with a lump

I.J. and L. Lobmeyr factory
Vienna, Austria

Water Glass, Finger Bowl, Candlestick
and Two Bonbonnieres, 1926

Blown clear glass

Purchased in memory of Georgiana L.
McClellan, 1958-98-1, 3, 8, 4

2. Detail of a typical "pontil" mark.

of molten glass; the vessel could then
be worked further. This attachment
is known as a "pont 1"- on blown
glass one can often detect the rough
surface which remains when the
completed vessel is broken away
from the pontil (Fig. 2).

The process of blowing glass has
been described by many authors,
from antiquity to the present. In
1556, Georgius Agricola published
his important work De Re Metallka,
a lengthy tome on mining, metal-
lurgy and related processes. In this
book Agricola includes a descrip-
tion of the fabrication of blown glass
vessels, which describes the tech-
nique as follows:

'The glass-makers often test the glass by
drawing it up with the blowpipes; as

3 . Group of Syrian-Roman vessels,
ist-4th century A. D.

Blown glass with applied decoration.

a. Purchased in memory of William G.
Saloman,

1959-111-1

b. Purchased in memory of Marie Torrance
Hadden,

1958-26-2

c. Gift of Mrs. Leo Wallerstein,
1961-88-7

d. Gift of Rodman Wanamaker,
1919-24-13

soon as they observe that the fragments
have been re-melted and purified satis-
factorily, each of them with another
blow-pipe which is in the pot, slowly
stirs and takes up the glass which sticks
to it in the shape of a ball like a gluti-
nous, coagulated gum. He takes up just
as much as he needs to complete the
article he wishes to make; then he
presses it against the lip of marble and
kneads it round and round until it con-
solidates. Wlien he blows through the
pipe he blows as he would if inflating a
bubble; he blows into the blow-pipe as
often as it is necessary, removing itfrom
his mouth to re-fill his cheeks, so that
his breath does not draw the flames into
his mouth. Then, twisting the lifted
blow-pipe round his head in a circle, he
makes a long glass, or moulds the same
in a hollow copper mould, turning it
round, then warming it again, blowing

it and pressing it, he widens it into the
shape of a cup or vessel, or of any other
object he has in mind. Then he again
presses this against the marble to flatten
the bottom, which he moulds in the
interior with his other blow-pipe.
Afterward he cuts out the lip with
shears, and, if necessary , addsjcct and
handles. If it so pleases him, he gilds it
and paints it with various colours.
Finally, he lays it in the oblong earth-
enware receptacle, which is placed in
the third furnace, or in the upper
chamber of the second furnace that it
may cool. " [Translation by H. C.
Hoover and L. H. Hoover, 1912.]

It was during tlie Roman period that
free-blown and mold-blown glass
was first produced in enormous
quantities; the thousands of simple
domestic vessels and containers

which have survived to the present
day give some indication of the
extent of production (Fig. 3a, b, c;d).
It is thought that the earliest efforts to
blow glass occurred in Phoenicia
sometime before the birth of Christ;
during this period of time it was
recognized that this highly desirable
material could also provide a lucra-
tive income to merchants and itin-
erant glass blowers, and glass fabri-
cated in Syria and Egypt was
transported as far away as present-
day Cologne by way of the Romans.
The Roman period is noteworthy for
the amount of glass produced, and
for the variety of techniques which
were developed for forming and deco-
rating the glass. The Romans were
adept at manipulating rods or
"canes" of colored glass which could
be combined in patterns, sliced, and

4 a. Syrian

Bowl, ist century A. D.
Blown and tooled glass

Gift of Mrs. Leo Wallerstcin,
1961-88-9

b. Graeco-Roman

Cup, ist century B.C. to I st century

A.D.

Blown glass with folded edge

Gift of Louis Cable Chard,
1953-183-1

joined to produce a "millefiori" or
"thousand flowers" pattern familiar
to modern paperweight collectors.
However, free-blown vessels by far
outnumber other varieties ot glass
from tljis period. Syrian-Roman
glass is of two basic types-luxury
products made for aristocratic
connoisseurs, and simple and easily
produced domestic forms. The
Museum collection is fortunate to
possess fine examples of the latter
type, in the form of beakers, vials,
cosmetic bottles, and medicine con-
tainers, most dating from the ist
through 4th centuries A.D. Many of
these early examples came to the
Cooper-Hewitt through the gener-
ous gift of Rodman Wanamaker.

Decoration of Syrian-Roman

domestic glass took several forms.
The simplest decoration resulted
from the shaping of the body itself,
and consisted of manipulating the
glass bubble to give it a distinctive
shape, particularly in the length of
the neck, by rolling the upper edge of
the sheared bubble to produce a
smooth, reinforced lip (Fig. 4b), or
using pincers to squeeze and stretch
the soft, hot glass in predetermined
shapes, such as ribs (Fig. 4a). Other
decorative or functional features
could be applied to the previously
formed body-a blob of glass could
be pulled to form a handle (Fig. 3d),
or the threads could be attached to
the surface for purely decorative
reasons, producing a mesh-like
entwined surface covering (Fig.
3b, c).

Due to the nature of the raw mate-
rials, Roman and Syrian glass was
generally of a greenish transparency.
Those vessels which survive are
often of peacock-feather iridescence,
although that was never the intent of
the glassmaker. The radiant surface
which we find so appealing is actu-
ally the result of deterioration of the
material; the composition of glass is
such that, given centuries of expo-
sure to chemicals in the environ-
ment, it will slowly react. Since
much Egyptian and Roman glass has
been preserved through accidental or
intentional burial in the earth, these
pieces exhibit the characteristic iri-
descence. These changes cause the
crystalline structure of the glass to
reflect certain colors in the spectrum
of light. Iridescence is unrelated to

the original color of the glass, only to
the light rays that it absorbs or re-
flects. This accidental beauty was
intentionally exploited in the latter
part of the 19th century; the works of
Louis Comfort Tiffany Studios,
among others, stand as supreme
examples of the technique of man-
made iridescence (Fig. 5).

During the i8th century, Persian
glassmakers revived the traditions of
free-form and mold-blown glass.
Sinuous, long-necked flasks were
produced by stretching and twisting
the air bubble while it was still on the
blowpipe (Fig. 6). The two ewers,
whose bodies are simple bubbles
with extended necks, have applied
handles and spouts (Fig. 6).

Vase

Blown iridescent glass

From the collection of the late Stanley
Siegel; the gift of Stanley Siegel,
1975-32-11

Flask and Ewers, i8th century
Blue, amber, and green blown and mold-
blown glass

Gift of Rodman Wanamaker,
1929-24-86, 90, 93

.»«a«t;..

Attributed to Bernard Perrot
France, active 1662-1688

Scent Bottle

Blue mold-blown glass

Bequest of Mrs. Sarah Cooper-Hewitt
193 1-6-59

Free-blown glass has never dimin-
ished in popularity, although the
principle of air expansion within a
gather of molten glass lead to
other developments within a rela-
tively short time. It was rapidly
understood that the still supple
bubble of glass could be altered by
pressure on the exterior surface to
create impressions or indentations in
the body wall. Potters had long been
familiar with the technique of press-
ing soft clay into a patterned mold to
produce regular, standardized shapes
and ornaments; glassblowers
adapted this technique to produce
mold-blown glass. A mold imper-
vious to the intense heat of the glass,
usually constructed in two separable
and close-fitting halves, allowed the
insertion of a gather of molten glass.
Air blown through the blowpipe

which held the gather of glass caused
the glass to expand and take on the
shape ot the surrounding mold.
When cooled and hardened the mold
was opened and removed from
around the glass, producing a shaped
and decorated vessel. The Cooper-
Hewitt collection contains a fine,
rare example of a 17th century use of
this technique: a scent bottle in the
shape of a man's head produced in a
two-part mold (Fig. 7). Although
rather crudely modelled, the details
such as the hair texture are distinct.
This deep blue bottle has been attrib-
uted to the French glassblower
Bernard Perrot (active 1662-1688).

Since the traditional technique of
mold-blowing permitted rapid
production of ornamented and
shaped containers, and due to the fact

Dyottville Glassworks
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Quart Flask, about 1850
Mold-blown glass

Gift of Miss Eleanor Gamier Hewitt,
1931-40-1

that the mold insured regularity of
form, the technique had obvious
commercial implications. By the
19th century, this process was fully
exploited by producers of bottles for
medicines and spirits (Fig. 8); these
often amusing bottles are frequently
decorated with commemorative
devices or portraits of well-known
figures, and sometimes with the
name of the bottle producer or the
commercial purchaser who used the
container for packaging. An exten-
sion of this process of mechanical
reproduction of forms and decora-
tions, in which molten glass is
poured into a patterned mold and
subjected to pressure, produces the
familiar "pressed" glass. The process
was patented in the 1820s by an
American, Demingjarves, the
founder of the Boston and Sandwich

Glass Company.

Of great interest to historians and
students of glass making are the
processes used in the formation of
the glass body; the techniques de-
scribed above — solid-core dipping
and forming, free-form blowing,
mold-blowing, and pressing — are
among the most basic. The orna-
mentation of the glass is the next
most important consideration.
Ornamentation may take many
forms, only a few of which can be
surveyed in any detail in this cata-
logue, but certain basic techniques
can be described which give the
craftsman nearly unlimited possibil-
ities for the ornamentation of ob-
jects. In addition to the manipulation
of the glass surface as described
above, other techniques of ornamen-

tation are well represented in the
Cooper-Hewitt collection, and are
of interest both from a technological
and art historical point of view.
These processes include: applying
decoration to the surface of an object
in the form of additional glass,
colored enamels or gilding; remov-
ing portions of the glass through
cutting, engraving or etching; con-
trolling the color and opacity of the
material to produce unusual effects
with the reflection and refraction of
light, and combining various colors
and types of glass within one forrn. It
is rare that a single decorative tech-
nique is used in isolation in the pro-
duction of a piece of glass, and many
of the techniques are closely related;
over the centuries glassworkers, de-
signers and artists have skillfully
combined these techniques to pro-

duce glass in great variety of forms,
each style with its own attraction.

9- Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933)
New York

Stemmed Bowl,

"Favrilc" glass, about 1900
Blown, iridescent glass with applied
decoration

Gift of Joseph L. Morris,
1965-55-9

Applied Decoration

France (Ncvcrs)

Female Figure, i8th century
Colored opaque lampworked glass

Gift of Frederick T. Victoria,
1 969-3 9- 1

Applied details on glass vessels often
had a tunctional purpose, such as
forming a handle or foot. However,
the decorative potential of glass
added to the surface of an object was
quickly absorbed into the context of
fabrication. Even earlier than the
Roman period, the Egyptians had
trailed multi-colored glass threads
across the surface of solid-core
vessels to produce striations of bril-
liant color. By Roman times this
technique had common acceptance;
often the glass threads thus applied
were of the same color as the body,
the difference in color resulting from
the varying thickness of the material.

Each addition of glass on the surface
requires that the body of the piece be
heated to a temperature which will
allow the added glass to fuse to the
surface without melting and collaps-
ing the hollow form. The careful
control of the heating process, in
which the vessel is inserted into a
"glory hole", heated to between
2300° F. and 2700° P., is a primary
requisite of good craftsmanship.
Applied blobs of glass, stretched and
manipulated to produce tapered
drops is exemplified in a stemmed
bowl produced at the Louis Comfort
TifTany Studios (Fig. 9), one of a
pair in the Museum's collection

bequeathed by Joseph L. Morris.

Applied glass may also be used for
the entire construction of objects, as
exemplified in the work of craftsmen
at Nevers, France in the 1 8th century
(Fig. 10). These figures were pro-
duced by manipulating multi-col-
ored rods of glass over the heat of a
lamp, fusing the applied pieces
together. The technique is described
by Johann Kunckel, a chemist and
glass-maker in Potsdam in 1679; his
book Ars V'itraria Expcrimeiitalis or
I 'ollkommi'ue Glasmachkiiiist (The
Complete Art oj Glassmakiii};) includes
the following passage:

"This is ii'iiiit I call the minor art of
<^lass-hlou'iui^, which is executed at the
lamp. Though it is not the most useful
oJ arts, it is nevertheless one of the most
delicate in all i>lass-makhni and the
source of much delight. How these
pretty and elegant objects are made I
will now relate:

Tirst obtain from a glass-house a
number of little rods or tubes of good and
pure crystal glass in divers colours; little
pieces oJ broken Venetian glass serve
our purpose best. Take a small tube
such as I have metitioned above, soften
it at one end, and by blowing into it you
can form spheres and other shapes;

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1 1 a, b. Switzerland,

Beaker and Pitcher, i8th century
Enamelled glass

The C. Helme and Alice B. Strater
Collection; the gift of C. Helme Strater,
John B. Strater, and Margaret S. Robinson,
1976-1-43,46

anyone who understands how to ma-
nipulate the glass will be able to produce
whatever he fancies in this way, such as
pictures, figures, crucifixes, small ves-
sels and anything you can imagine.
Very often you needfor this purpose
small pincers and little clamps made of
wire, in order to hold a piece when your
hands are occupied with various others,
and when you have to heat several
pieces which are to be welded together in
the flame. " [Translation from F.
Kampfer and K. Beyer, Glass; a
World History . . . (1966) no. 144]

Applied Decoration:
Enamels and Gilding

For many centuries glass has been
ornamented with colors painted and
affixed to the surface. The decoration
may be "cold" — that is, painted on
the glass with a non-permanent and
chemically unrelated material, such
as oil paint. However, most enam-
elled glass on which the decoration
survives is "hot" work using enam-
els composed of metallic coloring
combined with a compatible flux
that fuses the color permanently to
the surface of the glass. The process
of enamelling was known as early as
Roman times, and has remained
popular to the present. A striking
resurgence of the technique occurred
in Germany in the i6th century, par-
ticularly in Bohemia; bright, opaque

enamels were used on many forms,
including large cylindrical drinking
vessels known as Humpen. The
enamel tradition survived into the
1 8th century; the Cooper-Hewitt
collection is particularly rich in Swiss
enamelled glass of 1 8th century date
through the generous gift of enam-
elled folk glass from the C. Helme
and Alice B. Strater Collection.
Enamel decoration on these vessels
was often applied for purely orna-
mental reasons, and patterns in-
cluded flowers, scrolls, foliage, and
abstract motifs. Equally important
were enamelled designs of family,
religious or political interest; an
enamelled beaker with the symbols
of the Passion exemplifies this style
(Fig.iia).

An unusual variation in the enam-

r2. Dauni Factory
Nancy, France

Vase, late 19th century

Blown, cased, enamelled, and acid etched

glass

Purchased in memory ofjacob SchifF,
1 969-48- 1

elling technique may be found in the
late 19th century vase made at the
Daum factory in Nancy, France (Fig.
12), in which the enamelled design of
a landscape with realistic birch trees
is entirely encased in another layer of
glass, giving great depth to the
painted decoration. The outer sur-
face of the vase has been cut to pro-
duce three-dimensional tree trunks.
This process involves multiple cycles
of heating and cooling the object.

A thin layer of gold, usually applied
in an oil medium, could also be used
to ornament glass; on an i8th cen-
tury wine glass (Fig. 13) the gilded
details of lip and cut shell motifs is
skillfully combined with delicate
engraving. A related technique for
ornamenting glass consisted of in-
serting patterned gold foil between
two separate layers of glass, held
together with an adhesive.

Cutting, Engraving,
Etching

13. Silesia

Wine Glass, mid-i8th century
Cut engraved and gilded glass

Purchased in memory ofjames Loeb.

Ornamentation of glass through the
removal of a portion of the body
may be extreme, as in the case of
severely abrasive cutting and fac-
etting, or it may be fme and delicate
as in diamond and copper-wheel
engraving, or it can be highly tex-
tural or frosted through acid etching.

The technique of cutting away of
large areas of glass to produce facets
that sparkle with reflected prismatic
light is frequently employed on the
stems of wine glasses and goblets
(Fig. 14a) , although a standard use of
cutting was in the production ot bril-
liant facetted drops for chandeliers,
candleholders, and sconces (Fig. 15).
The cutting of glass is a jeweller's

14- Germany

a. Standing Cup, 1 8th century with
representations of the Four
Continents
Engraved and diamond-cut clear glass

Gift of the Trustees of the Estate of
James Hazcn Hyde,
1 960- 1 -84

Silesia

b. Beaker, early i8th century with
representations of the Four
Continents
Engraved clear glass

Gift of the Trustees of the Estate of
James Hazen Hyde,
1960-1-80

technique, related to the facetting
and carving of various minerals,
such as rock crystal, and precious
stones. The cutting of glass is re-
corded early in the history of the
craft. Pliny (A.D. 23-78) in his
Natural History (XXXVII, 28) states:
"It is marvellous how closely glass-
wares have come to resemble those
of rock crystal . . . ." Cutting can be
accomplished by means of a cutting
wheel, in which the object is pressed
against the moving wheel; the abra-
sion of contact and wet sand wear
away portions of the glass. A much
more complex and time-consuming
method is carving the surface with
sharp, abrasive hand tools. This
technique is frequently used in com-
bination with cased glass, which
consists of two or more layers of
glass, usually of varying colors.

England

Candelabrum, late i8th century
Cut glass, bronze and stoneware

Gift ofjudgc Irwin Untermyer,
1956-179-1 A, B

fused together on one object.
Carving through the layers produces
rchcf decoration, either in a color
which boldly contrasts with the
underlayer or a subtle gradation of
tones similar to cameo-work in stone
or shell. The Museum collection
includes noteworthy examples of
layered and carved glass. Of great
interest are carved bottles from
China (Fig. i6a, b). Glass was known
in China as early as the Han dynasty
(206 B.C.-A.D. 220), but native
production may have occurred later.
For the Chinese, glass became a sub-
stitute for the highly prized jade, and
was painstakingly carved in tech-
niques and patterns clearly derived
trom work in stone. Overlays of
richly colored glass in relief designs
contrasted with the underlying
surface.

i6a, b. China

Snuff Bottles, 19th century
Carved overlay glass

a. Anonymous gift, 1952-164-5

b. Gift of the Misses Hewitt,
193 1-64-5 1

17. EmilcGalle (1846-1904)
Nancy, France

Vase, about 1895

Cut and etched overlay glass

Gift of Harry Harkness Flagler,
1949-89-2

Oriental cut overlay glass was one
source of inspiration for late 19th
century European glass-makers. A
genius in the use of carved and etched
layered glass was Emile Galle (1846-
1904) , who adapted the Chinese style
to produce sensuous and delicate
naturalistic patterns of flowers and
toliage (Fig. 17). A glass form, such
as this vase, was overlaid with layers
of colored glass, varying in thickness
according to the design plan. In early
Galle pieces produced by this tech-
nique, the layers ot glass were carc-
tully cut away on the wheel to pro-
duce multi-colored patterns and
extremely subtle gradations of tone
and opacity, hi another example of
layered, cut and etched glass, a vase
probably made in Stourbridge,
England about 1910, the layers of
glass have been etched with acid to

Attributed to Thomas Fereday
(1854-1942)

For Thomas Webb and Sons, Stour-
bridge, England

Vase, about 1910

Overlay glass, acid etched, with yellow

ground, red and white overlay

Gift of Harry Harkness Flagler 1949-89-1

19- Detail of wheel engraving.

reveal the underlayers and to pro-
duce a matte, velvet-like surface
(Fig. 1 8).

Engraved decoration may also be a
machine or hand process. For hand
engraving the point of a diamond,
hand held, is the standard tool.
Alternatively, extremely small and
delicate wheels, usually made of
copper, are rotated with a coating of
fme abrasive; when the glass object is
brought into contact with the wheel,
the delicate abrasive causes a white
scratch on the surface of the object.
Continuous scratches in carefully
controlled patterns and at varying
depths create subtle gradations of
reflected and absorbed light. En-
graving techniques were known as
early as the Roman period. Impres-
sive engraving on glass occurred in

the Germanic countries during the
1 8th century, clearly exemplified in a
superb group of goblets and vessels
in the Cooper-Hewitt collection
engraved with representations of the
Four Continents (Fig. 14a, b), a
bequest ot the Trustees of the Estate
ot James Hazen Hyde.

Many less sophisticated examples of
engraving, upon close examination,
will reveal the blurred edges of in-
dividual wheel marks (Fig. 19), a
help in distinguishing between
wheel engraving and the smooth-
edged acid etching.

It was probably in the 17th century
that it was discovered that hydro-
fluoric acid was one of the few sub-
stances which could quickly attack
the surface ot glass, and could be

used alone or with other chemicals to
create a brilliant polish, a matte
frosted surface, or deep cuts, de-
pending on the concentration and
composition of the etching solution.

To produce an acid-etched pattern
on glass, the surface ot the object was
first coated with a material such as
wa.x or resin that resists the acid.
Scratches cut through the resin allow
the acid to come in contact with the
surface at specific points. Acid etch-
ings may be used with overlays ot
colored glass to achieve subtle
gradations of tone (Fig. 18), or to
achieve equally subtle contrasts ot
glass on matte surfaces, as in the
Rene Lalique (i 860-1945) "Gros
Scarabces" vase (cover), or to pro-
duce deep incisions on textured sur-
faces, as in the Koloman Moser vase

20. Koloman Moser (Moser Glass Works)
Vienna, Austria

Vase, about 1925

Clear and blue-streaked cased glass,

acid etched

Gift of Mrs. John Ralph from the Collec-
tion of her sister Mrs. Evsie Belousoffand
in her memory,
1961-1 13-2

of about 1925 (Fig. 20) with a com-
plex pattern offish and seaweed.
LaHque's particular contribution to
the use of matte surface glass is his
skillful contrast of a shiny, sparkling
surface with the velvet-like, nearly
powdery surface to achieve solid
sculptural forms in the Art Deco
style (Fig. 21).

21. Rene Lalique (1860-1945)
France

Footed Dish: "Sirene", about 1930
Frosted glass

Gift ofjacques Jugeat,
1 969- 1 26-5

Color

Among the most appealing charac-
teristics of glass is its potential for
crystal clarity and total absence of
color in the transparent material, or
brilliant, clear, and jewel-like colors.
Color was an important component
of glass in the early Egyptian days of
glassmaking; both the body and
decorative additions were fabricated
in bright hues of yellow, turquoise
and deep blue. Control of the color
in the molten mixture demands a
sophisticated and specialized knowl-
edge; for example, the addition of
copper to the mixture and the careful
control of furnace atmosphere and
temperature can turn glass various
shades from green to blue or deep
red. Copper may even be caused to
remain in suspension to create spar-
kling metallic flakes in the glass.

Various elements and metals can be
added to the glass mixture to pro-
duce a rainbow of colors. Among the
more important are:

Cobalt: the most intense of the
coloring additives, cobalt can pro-
duce a blue color so deep as to appear
nearly black.

Gold: gold is used to produce a
range of red colors in glass; particu-
larly noteworthy is a deep and rich

red, frequently used to case clear
glass, and subsequently cut through
on the engraver's wheel to produce a
striking contrast of red and white.

Antimony: produces an opaque
yellow glass.

Iron: produces a range of color from
yellow to green to blue; when added
to a batch of glass in the form of iron
oxide will produce the familiar deep
"bottle" green.

Copper: as noted above, copper
added to glass mixture can produce
blues, greens, reds, and glittering
metal in suspension.

Manganese: can be used to produce
an amethyst color.

Certain colors of glass were more
popular than others at particular
tmies. For example, during the latter
part of the i8th and early 19th cen-
tury, a typical deep sapphire blue
glass was produced that was used
alone, brilliantly facetted, as in an
Irish pitcher of about 1820 (Fig. 22),
or it frequently appeared as a simple
plain-bodied liner for pierced silver
objects such as salt cellars.

A striking use of color to achieve

23- Possibly Bohemia

Covered Vase, late 19th century
Clear and ruby-colored glass, cut and
engraved

Gift ofjames B. Ford
1 920-8- 10

22. Probably Ireland

Pitcher, about 1820
Dark blue cut glass

Anonymous gift,
1956-187-1

splendid effects of light reflection is
seen in the Museum's covered vase
from the second half of the 19th
century (Fig. 23). The massive vase,
composed of geometrically cut
moldings and a twisted knop has
been covered in a thin layer with bril-
liant ruby coloring. The wheel-
engraved decoration of scrolls, fo-
liage, and birds surrounds a central
oval containing a delicately engraved
buck in a landscape setting. The
engraver's wheel has cut through the
red outer layer to reveal the crystal
clear glass underneath.

A more sophisticated use of the
refractive quality of glass legiti-
mately falls within the category of
color manipulation. Drops of clear
glass, facetted at the cutter's wheel
and polished to a high gloss, as in the

24. Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933)
New York

Vase, about 1910
"Aquamarine" glass, with colored
opaque occlusions

From the Collection of the late Stanley
Siegel; the Gift of Stanley Siegel,
1975-32-14

late 18th-century candelabrum (Fig.
15), prismatically shatter incident
light into the color spectrum, con-
stantly changing according to the en-
vironmental conditions. Color in its
purest sense— as light-has been cap-
tured by the glassmaker in this
example.

Surface color may also be achieved
by exposing the glass to various
chemicals, thus causing iridescence
on the surface, not unlike the natural
iridescence found on ancient glass
vessels. The primary exponent of
this lustrous and evanescent surface
was the American, Louis Comfort
Tiffany (Fig. 5). Born in 1848,
Tiffany studied landscape painting
with George Inness; in 1879, he,
along with Samuel Colman and
Candace Wheeler, founded a decora-

ting firm. Tiftany collected ancient
glass and admired the brilliant sur-
face iridescence and organic, often
irregular forms, of the free-blown
vessels. It was shortly thereafter that
Tiffany began producing iridescent
glass at his studios. The collector
Samuel Bing once described Tif-
fany's glass as". . . so subtle, delicate
and mysterious that the water of an
exquisite pearl can alone be com-
pared to them."

Different colors of glass may also be
combined in the same piece to pro-
duce patterns. In the heavy stemmed
vase by Tiffany (Fig. 24), canes or
rods of various colors are carefully
built into successive gathers of clear,
pale-tinted glass; each layer of glass is
heated in the furnace to fuse the in-
dividual pieces into one. Several dis-

dnct layers of glass may be detected
on close examination. Finally, the
blossoms, fabricated from thin slices
of colored canes of glass, are laid on
the tops of the stems and the entire
piece surmounted by a free-blown
glass bowl, fused to the stem.

Cased glass is best represented in
many modern works in the Cooper-
Hewitt collection (Fig. 25). Casing
of glass consists of adding successive
thick or thin layers of glass to a core;
often these are of contrasting color.

still holds a magical fascination for
artists and designers. The Cooper-
Hewitt collection of glass, covering
an admirable and impressive period
of time, continues to expand in scope
and variety, and is a fundamental
resource for the study of techniques
and the enjoyment of the beauty of
the material.

This brief overview of the tech-
niques used by glassmakcrs over the
centuries suggests some of the possi-
bilities for forming and decorating
glass objects. It is important to
recognize that this material, so
prized and admired by the ancients.

David Revere McFadden

Curator of Decorative Arts

25. Salviati Factory
Murano, Italy

Vase, about i960

Cased clear, blue, and red glass

Gift of Michael Lewis Balamuth,
1971-66-2

Selected Reading

The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1914)
Arwas, Victor. Glass: Art Nouveau to Art Deco. (New York: Rizzoli, 1977)

Beard, Geoffrey W. Nineteenth Century Cameo Glass. (Newport, England: Ceramic Book Co., 1956)
Buckley, Wilfred. The Art of Glass. (London: Phaidon Press, 1939)

European Glass. (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1926)

Corning, New York Museum of Glass. Glass from the Ancient World. (Corning, New York: Museum of Glass, 1957)

Three Great Centuries of Venetian Glass. (Corning, New York: Museum of Glass, 1958)

Elville, E. M. Collector's Dictionary of Glass. (London: Country Life, Ltd., 1961)

Gardner, Paul V. Glass [The Smithsonian Illustrated Library of Antiques.] (New York: Cooper-Hewitt Museum, 1979)

The Glass of Frederick Carder. (New York: Crown, 1971)

Gros-Galliner, Gabriella. Glass: A Guide for Collectors. (New York: Stein & Day, 1970)
Grover, Ray, and Grover, Lee. Art Glass Nouveau. (Rutland, Vt. and Tokyo: C. E. Tuttle, 1967)

Carved and Decorated European Art Glass. (Rutland, Vt.: C.E. Tuttle, 1970)

Haudicquer de Blancourt, Jean. The Art of Glass. (London: Dan. Brown, Tho. Bennet, D. Midwinter, Tho. Leigh,

andR. Wilkin, 1699)
Haynes, E. Barrington. Glass Through the Ages. (Harmondsworth, England: Pelican Books, 1959)
Hunter, Frederick William. Stiegel Glass. (New York: Dover Publications, 1967)
Kampfer, F. and Beyer, K.G. Glass; A World History (London: Studio Vista, 1966).
Koch, Robert. Louis C. Tifany, Rebel in Glass. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1964)
McKearin, George Skinner, and McKearin, Helen. American Glass. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1948)

Two Hundred Years of American Blown Glass. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1962)

Mariacher, Giovanni. Italian Blown Glass from Ancient Rome to Venice. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961)
Middlemas, Robert Keith, and Davis, Derek C. Colored Glass. (New York: C. N. Potter, 1968)
Perrot, Paul. Steuben: Seventy Years of American Glassmaking. (New York: Praeger, 1974)

A Short History of Glass Engraving. (New York: Steuben Glass, 1973)

Polak, Ada Buch. Modem Glass. (London: Faber& Faber, 1962)

Saldern, Axel von. German Enamelled Glass: The Edwin f. Beinecke Collection and Related Pieces. [Corning Museum of

Glass Monograph No. 2]. (Corning, New York: 1965)

Schwartz, Marvin D. Collector's Guide to Antique American Glass. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969)

Steenberg, Elisa. Swedish Glass. (New York: Barrows, 1950)

Wakefield, Hugh. Nineteenth Century British Glass. (London: Faber& Faber, 1961)

Weiss, Gustav. The Book of Glass. (New York: Praeger, 1971)

Wilson, K. M. New Enqland Glass and Glassmaking. (New York: Crowell, 1972)

With gratitude to Mr. Joseph Upharn, technical consultant, and Mr. Marvin D. Schwartz for their invaluable assistance.

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